


Ghost of You

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: tv-universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 04:25:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Without their staggering footsteps and the brush of fabric on fabric there was only silence. Just the quiet, and Glenn's eyes wide and dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost of You

**Author's Note:**

> Ist of 5 unconnected stories written for LJ's tv_universe community for the "otherwordly" challenge.
> 
> This story was written for the prompt "sillage" - the impression made in space after something or someone has been and gone.
> 
> * * *

"Hey," Glenn says. 

Daryl nods, feels his shoulders stiffen involuntarily. He doesn't look up from his oatmeal. But any hope that he has that Glenn will wander off when he doesn't get a reply fades when the log shifts beside him, when Glenn sits and stretches out his legs.

The oatmeal is cold and lumpy and completely unpalatable, but he hastily shoves another spoonful of it into his mouth anyway.

"So," Glenn says.

Glenn never could take a hint. Not now, with him tense and silent beside him, keeping his eyes determinedly fixated on his breakfast. And certainly not back at the quarry camp, when the last thing he wanted was to stand out, when he still found himself looking at the damned kid all the time, thinking things he shouldn't have been thinking, and then finally noticed that the kid was looking back. 

"We haven't talked in a while," Glenn says. "Or… anything."

Daryl looks up sharply then. But Glenn is looking out across the field, watching the horses grazing in the pasture. 

No, there hasn't been anything in a while.

Not since the CDC, when they suddenly had four sturdy walls between them and the monsters; when there was wine and whiskey and stumbling through dimly lit halls and hands touching, everywhere. They fell through the doorway to his room, onto the sofa, and without their staggering footsteps and the brush of fabric on fabric there was only silence. Just the quiet, and Glenn's eyes wide and dark. Daryl's palms were slick and his mouth dry at the thought of taking this step, this monumental step, and he dropped his gaze from Glenn's startled eyes to his throat, smoothly clean-shaven, the adam's apple bobbing convulsively.

He knew all he'd have to do to end it would be to back away, make a snarky comment about the amount of liquor they'd both ingested. Make fun of Glenn for being such a lightweight. In a heartbeat things would be back to the status quo – to stealing glances instead of meeting Glenn's eyes, to watching Glenn instead of touching him. 

He leaned forward and sucked at Glenn's throat instead.

He wonders if Glenn remembers how their hearts sped up, or how their hands seemed to be everywhere at once, or how he couldn't bear to move his lips away from Glenn's skin. How he pushed frantically at the hem of his T-shirt and kissed every inch of exposed skin, trapped Glenn's arms and swallowed his tongue until Glenn mewled and writhed beneath him. 

Daryl remembers the heady rush of it, the wild freedom. 

His hands had fumbled clumsily at Glenn's belt, shaking, refusing to work properly in a way that he could never blame on the Comfort. He wonders if Glenn remembers that. Or the way he came too quickly, with a shuddering blinding intensity that felt like it had been building for years. 

He thought it would be awkward, after. But Glenn had flopped onto his back, had started talking about the past – about his family lost in Atlanta, about finding Dale and then Andrea and Amy and then the quarry. And he'd talked about a future. About inventorying the food supplies, using the computers to try to hook up with other survivors. About having time to breathe for once, and just be together. Most of it was rambling and borderline incoherent, and all Daryl remembers is reaching across to tentatively lay his hand over Glenn's as he spoke. He had fallen asleep to the sound of Glenn's voice.

It was the best night of his life, and when he woke up in the morning Glenn was gone. 

Then there was chaos, the explosion, the mad dash for safety; a herd of walkers and a little girl who got too scared to stay in one place. There were new people and a search that stretched ever outward, and no time to think about anything else. Daryl collapses in his tent at the end of each long day, hoping that he's pushed his body hard enough that oblivion will come quickly. Because the last thing he wants is to lay awake, listening to the wind in the trees and reliving that night, still tasting Glenn's skin on his tongue and feeling the press of Glenn's fingers on his hips. Knowing that their one night changed nothing. That there is no future.

He realizes his fingers are clenching white-knuckled around his spoon, forces himself to drop it into the bowl. Flexes his hand and side-glances Glenn when the log shifts, but Glenn is still staring out toward the field.

He follows the direction of Glenn's gaze, then. Finds the farmer's daughter feeding hay to the horses.

He wonders if Glenn is even aware of the slight smile on his lips.

He wonders if Glenn even considered that the reason he held off on taking advantage of the Greene's hot showers for so long is because he believed he could still smell Glenn on his skin.

"You've just been real quiet lately," Glenn says. He shrugs, amends, "Quieter than normal, I mean, and I just thought maybe we could—"

Daryl stands abruptly, shoves the half-eaten bowl of porridge into Glenn's hands. "Got a little girl to find," he snaps out. "Remember her? Sophia? Ain't got time to sit around chit-chattin' like a couple of damn hens!"

He can feel Glenn's eyes on him as he stalks toward his tent; Lori's, too, wide and unblinking as she emerges from her tent. He strides the length of his own tent, back and forth, breathing through his nose, before sweeping up his bow and heading for the woods. He's got acres of ground to search. He needs to find Sophia. And not just because he knows what it is to be alone and frightened and have nowhere to turn.

If he can just concentrate on finding one lost little girl, he can avoid thinking about the giant hole in his life that only Glenn can fill.


End file.
